The present invention relates to a power control device for controlling the amount of power to be consumed in a processor.
Computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., are known in the art. Herein, these stored program type devices are referred to generally as “processors”.
Some conventional processors include a power control device. For example, a power control device for a processor lowers the frequency of the internal clock of the processor to a lower frequency in the stand-by mode, thereby reducing the power consumption.
With the conventional power control device for a processor, however, the lower clock frequency cannot be determined by the user of the processor. Moreover, the stand-by mode is selected through execution of a special instruction by the processor, thereby increasing the size of the program.